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About this project

The Brief Synopsis

We're competing in an international contest to land a lunar rover on the moon. It's called the Google Lunar X PRIZE.

We need to purchase a CNC milling machine in order to complete construction of our flight-like lunar rover prototype.

We need your help to do it... and we have some pretty awesome rewards for you.

Background & Vision

Earthrise Space, Inc. is a
non-profit research laboratory and student training ground located in Orlando,
Florida near the University of Central Florida. The company provides students the
opportunity to gain hands-on experience designing, building, testing and
operating real spacecraft, the ultimate STEM experience! The skills and
knowledge gained from this provides students with a significant advantage as
they enter the workforce and seek high-tech jobs in aerospace or related
industries.

ESI allows students to take on the responsibility of designing and
building complex spacecraft systems. The company forces them to work together
with other students, company management and senior engineering advisers and
experts in a fast paced, multi-disciplinary environment. Students must satisfy
challenging engineering constraints and manage customer requirements. They are
encouraged to innovate and explore, and to learn from and overcome mistakes
that are made along the way. These efforts provide the students with critical
real-world experience unavailable to them from the classroom or through
internships with large corporations.

Earthrise Space Inc. is the
Florida team pursuing the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP), through its Omega Envoy
Project. Of the 26 teams in the competition, ESI is one of only six teams which
have been selected for a NASA Innovative Lunar Demonstrations Data contract worth
up to $10M. The company is aggressively moving forward with development of its
lunar spacecraft to pursue the GLXP and deliver valuable data to NASA in the
process.

With the GLXP, a total of $30
million in prize money is available to the first privately funded teams to
safely land a robot on the surface of the Moon, have that robot travel 500
meters over the surface, and send HD video, images and data back to Earth.
Bonus prizes are available for surviving the lunar night, visiting lunar
heritage sites (including those of the Apollo landings), traveling more than 5
km and detecting water. More details about the competition are available here.

Why we need your help!

As a non-profit company, we rely
on contributions to move the project forward. We have already secured many key partners and
sponsors including the University of Central Florida, Space Florida, Imaging
Source, National Instruments, and many others (visit our Partner and Sponsor
pages on our website for a full list).

We consider one of our most
important sponsors to be Stratasys, a company that produces 3D printers and
production systems. They have provided us with a Dimension 1200es 3D printer
which we are using to prototype spacecraft components before cutting actual
metal.

Our Dimension 1200es 3D Printer, Courtesy of Stratasys

For our project to move forward,
we need to take our designs to the next step. We need your help to obtain a 4-axis
CNC milling machine. We’ll be able to use the machine to take our rover (and also our lander) designs from
CAD drawings to real spacecraft parts. Design, analysis, 3D printing, CNC
machining… it’s all done by our students!

Our team of students, advisers and management at Earthrise Space Inc.

We should also mention that while
we have been awarded a contract by NASA worth up to $10M, the contract is
awarded incrementally. We can’t keep going after and delivering more segments
of the contract without a CNC machine… and your help!

Your Rewards

Besides that warm fuzzy feeling
you’ll have inside from supporting students in this incredible project, there
are also a number of other interesting, fun and cool rewards available to you.

For the most part, the rewards
are self-exclamatory. We’ve included a few pictures below.

Lunar Stress Ball... Marvin not included! ($8 or more)

Omega Envoy T-Shirt ($25 or more)

12" Diameter Lunar Globe ($115 or more)

For as little as $150, you can
get a 3D printed model of our lunar rover (in 1/8 scale). $300 will get you a
larger 3D printed version with wheels that roll and solar arrays that
articulate. For $500 you can get one at the largest size we can print with the
Dimension 1200es… 9/32 scale (approximately 10” across)!

1/8 Scale 3D Printed Lunar Rover Model ($150 or more)

3/16 Scale 3D Printed Articulating Lunar Rover Model ($300 or more)

Making good use of our new CNC milling
machine, we also are offering models of the rover machined out of solid
aluminum blocks. 1/8 scale and an incredible ¼ scale are available!

Behind-The-Scenes Tour

For our biggest supporters, we’re
providing even more amazing rewards. $3,000 will get you an opportunity to
visit our facility for a behind-the-scenes tour. You’ll meet our students and
see our spacecraft hardware up close.

Drive a Real Lunar Rover

$5,000 will get you the tour,
plus a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to drive the REAL lunar rover! We’ve been
building a huge, tilting lunar sandbox similar to those used by NASA JPL to put
Mars rovers through their paces. It will be filled with lunar soil simulant provided
by NASA’s Granular Mechanics and Surface Systems Laboratory. You’ll get to suit
up and drive the actual rover we will send to the moon!

Send your DNA to the moon!

Our biggest contributors will get
to secure their place in history by sending their DNA to the lunar surface, to
be preserved for all time! We’ll collect the DNA, package it on the spacecraft,
and fly it to the moon during our mission to win the Google Lunar X PRIZE. It’s
a little like a lunar burial… but not as depressing. Imagine looking up at the moon,
and knowing a little piece of you is up there… and it will still be up there
after the human race is long gone!

Fly your DNA to the moon! ($10,000 or more)

You also will get to place your
name or a small logo of your choosing onto the lunar spacecraft. Of course you
will get to visit our facility, try your hand at operating our lunar rover, and
receive two 1/4 scale models of the lunar rover to commemorate your
participation in our mission.

We’re working out the precise procedures
for DNA collection and storage but should have the details finalized in time to
collect all the samples and launch them to the moon with our mission, currently
scheduled for December 2014.

Contributions small or large… it’s all appreciated!

There are a number of
intermediate rewards as well which we haven’t pointed out here. At whatever
level you contribute, know that you are helping students build real spacecraft,
and you’re going to be getting some pretty amazing rewards as well! The
students appreciate your support!

FAQ

It depends upon how much you want to send. We are currently selling payload space on the lunar lander for $1.6M / kg, and on the rover for $1.8M / kg. The smallest increment we are offering for these is 1/2 kg.

But most people would only be interested (and able to afford) to send a few grams of their loved one's ashes to the moon... so we're offering the following:

5g of ashes flown for $20,000

You have two options:

1) We fly the ashes on the Lunar Descent Vehicle. This will soft-land on the lunar surface.

2) We fly the ashes on our Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) stage. This spacecraft will crash into the lunar surface, thus scattering the ashes.

If you are interested in either of these options, please pledge $20,000 or more.

Of course you will also receive your name or a small logo of your choosing on the spacecraft, a visit to our facility, the opportunity to try your hand at operating our lunar rover, and two 1/4 scale models of the lunar rover.

DNA samples will be packaged into a storage module bolted to the Lunar Descent Vehicle. This module will protect the samples from UV irradiation, which would be the primary environmental mechanism that would destroy DNA. Cosmic rays and solar particle events will damage the DNA over time, but this process will occur very slowly. ESI predicts that DNA samples should remain viable on the lunar surface for at least 1,000 years and possibly quite a bit longer.

“Numerous studies have demonstrated that DNA can persist for millions of years if present in protected niches on Earth. Thus, we should expect that DNA on the Moon, if protected from UV irradiation and harsh vacuum, would be expected to persist for at least several millennia.” - Dr. Andrew Schuerger, University of Florida, KSC Space Life Sciences Lab

Yes. For the $4 pledge level, we will post a URL instead of a picture, if you so desire. ESI reserves the right to accept or reject any URL you send (for example, we will not accept links to inappropriate, obscene or other questionable websites).

There are a number of reasons why it makes more sense for us to purchase our own CNC milling machine instead of sending our designs out to be machined by others.

First, we intend to do a lot of machining, and our spacecraft parts can be pretty complicated! This is an active design project which will involve a lot of prototyping and redesign as we move forward. Our student team is learning as they go, so it’s likely we’ll go through many revisions of parts as the design matures. We’ll also need several rovers and landers to be built for testing purposes before we build the actual flight hardware.

Second, ESI is about more than just pursuing the X PRIZE. We intend to eventually turn this into a commercial lunar delivery service where we are sending spacecraft to the moon every few years. We have also received inquiries from several companies interested in purchasing copies of our lander for delivering their own payloads to the moon. We are pursuing several additional STEM projects, including spacecraft hardware as well as terrestrial projects. Having in-house machining capability will enable these projects by allowing rapid prototyping and production while keeping our costs low. When the machine is not being used to support our projects, we can generate additional revenue by providing manufacturing services to other companies in the Central Florida region.

Third, all spacecraft designs and hardware are controlled by export regulations from the US State Department, including ITAR and EAR regulations. That limits what machine shops we can work with. If we do the work in house, this is a lot less paperwork we have to deal with.

Fourth, a core objective of Earthrise Space, Inc. is to provide students with hands-on experience building spacecraft. By having our own machine, the students will get hands-on experience operating it, and will get a better understanding of how to design parts that can actually be manufactured, and in an efficient manner.

$1,000 reward

Receive a 1/8 scale model of our lunar rover, cut on the CNC machine out of a solid aluminum block.

Estimated delivery:Oct 2012

You selected

$1,750 reward

0 backers

Receive (2) two 1/8 scale models of our lunar rover, cut on the CNC machine out of solid aluminum blocks. One for you and one to share with a friend or family member.

Estimated delivery:Oct 2012

You selected

$2,000 reward

0 backers

Receive a 1/4 scale model of our lunar rover, cut on the CNC machine out of a solid aluminum block.

Estimated delivery:Nov 2012

You selected

$2,750 reward

0 backers

Receive (2) two 1/4 scale models of our lunar rover, cut on the CNC machine out of solid aluminum blocks. One for you and one to share with a friend or family member.

Estimated delivery:Nov 2012

You selected

$3,000 reward

0 backers

Come visit our facility for the ultimate behind-the-scenes tour! Bring your family or a few friends. See lunar spacecraft being built, tested and prepared for launch. Meet the amazing college students and space industry advisors who are making the project possible. Tours of Kennedy Space Center and UCF can also be arranged. (Note: All travel arrangements and costs are the responsibility of each participant and are not included.)

Estimated delivery:Oct 2012

You selected

$3,750 reward

0 backers

The amazing tour described above, plus a 1/8 scale model of the lunar rover, cut on the CNC machine out of a solid aluminum block.

Estimated delivery:Oct 2012

You selected

$5,000 reward

0 backers

Not only do you get the amazing behind-the-scenes tour described above, but you also get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to drive our real lunar rover! Come "play in our sandbox," built just like those at JPL used by NASA to test Mars rovers. Put our rover through it's paces on NASA provided lunar soil simulant.

Estimated delivery:Oct 2012

You selected

$6,500 reward

0 backers

The behind-the-scenes tour and rover driving opportunity described above, plus get a 1/4 scale model of the lunar rover to keep as a momento of this incredible experience!

Estimated delivery:Oct 2012

You selected

$10,000 reward

0 backers

For our most generous supporters, secure your place in history. ESI will send your DNA with our spacecraft to the Lunar surface. Additionally, we will place your name or a small logo of your choosing onto the spacecraft. Of course you will also get to visit our facility, try your hand at operating our lunar rover, and recieve two 1/4 scale models of the lunar rover to commemorate your participation in our mission.